"It's beautiful," she interrupted quietly, looking up at him. "Very beautiful. I'm sorry, I just..." She looked back down at the bracelet, and carefully extracted it from the box. "It just took me by surprise. It shouldn't have. I mean, they told us that we should commemorate the deaths."

She slipped it onto her wrist. It was beautiful. And as horrible the thing it commemorated was...she would always be known here as the woman who died by snakebite her first arena, wouldn't she? Maybe it was time to own it.

"Better than a velociraptor," she said with a slight smile. Then she looked up, met his eyes. "Thank you."